Advertisement
Published: March 8th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Setting up mosquito nets
It's not as easy as it seems! 'Do you think we're reaching soon?' asked June as we trudged in pairs, threes and fours carrying our heavy packs on the path leading to the Boys Brigade Language Centre (BBLC). ‘I've no idea... maybe another five minutes?'. I replied hopefully. The walk seemed endless as we were clueless as to when we would reach our destination and what made it almost unbearable was the combination of the heavy bags upon our shoulders and the sweltering heat and humidity in the air.
We passed houses with stilts in the midst of rice fields of the brightest green. Hens stalked, scavenging for food in the soil while chicks ran around chirping away. Roosters strutted proudly, pluming their bright feathers. Pigs lay underneath those houses between the stilts to escape the heat. Cattle grazed, occasionally looking up while chewing away idly. Curious children peeped out from their houses and bold ones ran out, waved and shouted, 'Hello! Hello!!’. We waved and returned their greetings half-heartedly, too hot and bothered to be enthusiastic. I would have truly enjoyed this simple and placid environment if it had been in a different situation.
Just as I was plodding on wondering when we would ever
Done!
We were mighty pleased with ourselves :) reach our destination, we finally came to an enormous black gate with the signage 'Boys Brigade Language Centre'. Relieved that we had finally reached our destination, I walked a little faster, eager to shorten the distance quickly.
You might be wondering, what is BBLC and what was our business with it? BBLC was situated in a small village named Phnom Khrom, just outside of Siem Reap. It was commissioned by a Singaporean couple, Reuben and Jane, as a place for the local village children to learn the English language during their spare time after school or after their chores. There are no paid English teachers there, or any fixed classes. Rather, Reuben had an ongoing relationship with the YMCA in Singapore to organise volunteers from schools and organisations to Cambodia for this purpose. We were the group of volunteers representing Citibank Singapore. Our tasks would be to teach English to the village children and also to assist with an ongoing road work project that would link the village easily with the main road by wagons and vehicles.
Now, I am not a staff member of Citibank, but got involved in this missionary trip after my friend Woon who
The BBLC gate
Chin in front of the gate was and still is an employee related it to me saying she planned to join this trip and asking if I was interested. At that period of time, I was in the midst of planning my trip to the United Kingdom for a two-year working holiday stint. However this project sparked my interest instantly, and in just a split moment, my plans changed. So, instead of just flying off to the UK, I contemplated travelling by land towards that direction. We were both very excited that we would be spending an amount of time experiencing voluntary work and travelling together.
So there we were standing, in front of BBLC, our new home for the next coming week. As we trooped in to the building, we were greeted by Jason, who was the caretaker of BBLC. He was an amusing and dear old man in his sixties who hovered and nagged at us like a clucky mother hen, but in an endearing way. BBLC was a single-storey open building, with a corridor running between two long stretches of rooms. One side of the corridor houses two bathrooms, one for the gents and one for the ladies, three empty rooms and
Our team
We were one of two teams. Appropriate dressing? Checked! one classroom. The other side of the corridor houses Jason's room with a little kitchen, the teacher's room (where Reuben and Jane worked), another classroom and then a small library that also served as an activity room. There was a vast field area outside the building that was overrun with tall and uneven grass. It encompassed a volleyball court also overran with grass, a garden full of wild plants and a laundry-drying area on the other side of the building.
There were eighteen of us and we would occupy the three empty adjacent rooms, two for the ladies and one for the gentlemen. We came prepared, so it came to no surprise that this building only provided the bare necessities. The rooms were threadbare. Apart from a bunk bed with no mattresses in my room, there were no beds in the others. We would be sleeping together on the floor in our sleeping bags. As we allocated ourselves to the rooms, Jason came in with two big boxes filled with mosquito nets. It was very important that we set them up to prevent and lower the risk of being bitten by malaria-ridden mosquitoes. We hence spent the next two
The road
The concrete small road which we would be helping to extend. It leads from the village to the main road, hours setting up the nets; which I assure you were no easy feat. I must admit that that was the first time in my life setting up a mosquito net and I am confident that it was the same with the majority of my roommates. However there started the first of the numerous teamwork that were to come and even though we were feeling uncomfortable and perspiring away, there was camaraderie in our spirits.
After setting up our sleeping quarters, we were asked to gather in the fields where we sat in a circle. Reuben introduced himself and the school. He encouraged us to do the same so that we get to know each other better. After that he stated some house rules and the dress code that we should adhere to. While moving around the village and mingling amongst the villagers, we should dress conservatively. We should not wear transparent or tight-fitting clothing; sleeveless tops and short shorts or skirts were a no-no, not to mention revealing clothing that reveal any part of our underwear or inappropriate areas of bare skin. The dress code was to preserve the conservative thinking of the villagers as they were not exposed
very much to 'revealing' tourists. I guess Reuben also wanted a clean image to be portrayed for the volunteers brought in by him. That was easily understood. Alas his idea of 'transparency level' and ours were different. We didn't realise that the cotton long-sleeved tops that we bought in Siem Reap were not allowed as the material was considered too thin to be decent. As some of us wore those tops to 'work' the next day, we were being 'reprimanded' in the next meeting for being too revealing. The thing was, those tops were recommended by our YMCA representative in Singapore as being appropriate and most of us bought a number of them solely for this purpose. A short argument ensued and a number of us were quite indignant about it. It was a fine example of culture clash. The argument came to a concedement that we would layer those tops with something below... not a pleasant idea considering the weather!
Hence, on jittery grounds, our mission began.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.05s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0284s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb